"EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE What Factors Are Most Important
to Your Job Satisfaction?
Most of us probably want a job we think will satisfy us.
But because no job is perfect, we often have to trade off
job attributes. One job may pay well but provide limited
opportunities for advancement or skill development.
Another may offer work we enjoy but have poor benefits.
The following is a list of 21 job factors or attributes:
? Autonomy and independence.
? Benefits.
? Career advancement opportunities.
? Career development opportunities.
? Compensation/pay.
? Communication between employees and
management.
? Contribution of work to organization's business goals.
? Feeling safe in the work environment.
? Flexibility to balance life and work issues.
? Job security.
? Job-specific training.
? Management recognition of employee job
performance.
? Meaningfulness of job.
? Networking.
? Opportunities to use skills/abilities.
? Organization's commitment to professional
development.
? Overall corporate culture.
? Relationship with co-workers.
? Relationship with immediate supervisor.
? The work itself.
? The variety of work.
On a sheet of paper, rank-order these job factors from
top to bottom so number 1 is the job factor you think is
most important to your job satisfaction, number 2 is the
second most important factor to your job satisfaction, and
so on.
Next, gather in teams of three or four people and try
the following:
1. Appoint a spokesperson who will take notes and report
the answers to the following questions, on behalf
of your group, back to the class.
2. Averaging across all members in your group, generate
a list of the top five job factors.
3. Did most people in your group seem to value the
same job factors? Why or why not?
4. Your instructor will provide you the results of a study
of a random sample of 600 employees conducted
by the Society for Human Resource Management
(SHRM). How do your group's rankings compare
with the SHRM results?
5. The chapter says pay doesn't correlate all that well
with job satisfaction, but in the SHRM survey, people
say it is relatively important. Can your group suggest a
reason for the apparent discrepancy?
6. Now examine your own list again. Does your list
agree with the group list? Does your list agree with
the SHRM study?"
Required minimum-300 words